Page 188 - DLIS002_KNOWLEDGE ORGANIZATION CLASSIFICATION AND CATALOGUING THEORY

Unit 9: Physical Forms and Types of Library Catalogues

9.6.4 Subject Catalogue Notes

In an alphabetical subject catalogue, entries are made under the name of the specific subjects of
documents. Irrespective of their affiliations, specific subject entries are strictly arranged in an
alphabetical order. The fundamental rule of entry in an alphabetical specific subject catalogue is
to enter a work under its specific subject. For example, a book on ‘Roses’ will be entered under
‘Roses’ and not under ‘flowers’ or ‘Botany’, which are broader than ‘Roses’. Ranganathan defines
a specific subject of a document as that division of knowledge whose intension and extension are
equal to its thought contents.

Example: According to him, the specific subject of ‘Teaching chemistry in secondary
schools in Delhi’ would be ‘DELHI, CHEMISTRY, TEACHING TECHNIQUE, SECONDARY
SCHOOLS, EDUCATION’ and not the way it is given in the heading.
In almost every type of library, the predominate requests for documents are by their subjects.
Hence extensive provision must be made to give adequate representation to subjects of documents,
with a considerable number of cross-references, directing the user to the various aspects of a
subject.
While the alphabetical specific subject catalogue provides comparatively easy approach to the
catalogue by arranging subjects in alphabetical order, it scatters related subjects. Depending on
the incidence of the letter of the alphabet, it disperses entries pertaining to related subjects
throughout the catalogue. In fact, one has to refer to a number of subject headings to get a full
view of the ramifications of a subject.

9.6.5 Dictionary Catalogue

The general meaning of the word ‘dictionary’ is that it is a reference book, giving information
on particular subjects or on a particular class of words, names, or facts, usually arranged
alphabetically, for example: a biographical dictionary. The dictionary catalogue derives its
name from this general meaning of the word ‘dictionary’. A dictionary catalogue gives
information about documents available in a library with reference to their authors, titles, subjects,
etc. All the entries get arranged in a single alphabetical order. It resembles arrangement of
entries as in a natural language dictionary in which all words, irrespective of their origin, parts
of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.), usage, etc. are arranged in one single alphabetical
order. A more formal definition of a dictionary catalogue is that it is ‘a catalogue usually on
cards, in which all entries - author, title, subjects, series, etc., and their relatives are arranged
together in one general alphabet” (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules II).

As mentioned above, a dictionary catalogue consists of four different groups of entries, each
containing different types of bibliographical elements. The first group comprises authors and
collaborators (editors, translators, commentators, etc.); the second group is composed of title
entries. The third group is made up of subject entries. The fourth group consists of cross-references
of different kinds. But all these groups fall in one single alphabetical order. All these entries are
called word entries.

Notes Some libraries prefer to display the dictionary catalogue in two separate parts: the
first part containing author and title entries with cross references, if any, and the second
part is reserved exclusively for subject entries with cross references. This is called ‘divided
catalogue’. This type of separation poses some problems for users, as they have to refer to
both these parts located at different places, to find out the information for a document of
their interest.

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